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Background

In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) announced the Poor People’s Campaign, a movement that would work to combat economic inequality and poverty. King’s previous activism had helped achieve integration and voting rights for Black people, but he believed that minorities would never be truly equal until they could achieve an equal economic footing. Following his assassination in 1968, the movement continued with an occupation of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In 2018, the Poor People’s campaign was revived by a new generation of leaders to continue a fight against poverty and structural racism.

Main activity

On Saturday, June 18, 2022, thousands of protestors gathered for a rally near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, led by Rev. William Barber II. Representatives of many left-wing political movements and religious groups spoke and were in attendance.

Have your class watch this video from Democracy Now!, an audience-supported, left-leaning news program, before discussing the questions below.

1. Begin with the statistics Rev. Barber gives about poverty in the United States. He says there are “140 million poor and low wealth people in this country” and “87 million people who are uninsured or underinsured.” Do these numbers surprise you? How do they make you feel?
2. Barber describes these conditions as “policy murder,” indicating his belief that the government not addressing poverty is tantamount to a crime. Do you agree with his framing of this issue? How is this different from the way that you usually hear poverty and government policy discussed in the news?
3. Barber calls for a “Third Reconstruction” and states that the Civil Rights Movement was a second reconstruction following the first one after the Civil War. What problems were addressed by Reconstruction in the 1860s-70s and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s? Are those challenges comparable to the ones that exist today?
4. Barber describes the current state of poverty in America as “constitutionally inconsistent.” By this he means that the current economic state of the country is not in line with the founding fathers’ vision. Consider the fact that the Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal” and have “unalienable rights” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Do you agree that poverty is inconsistent with what the founders imagined?
   • Media literacy: Ask your students to use the internet to find national outlets that covered this event — What did you come up with? more or less than you expected?
   • Media literacy: What political perspective do you think Democracy Now! comes from? Do you think that it is more biased than other news outlets, or just biased in a different direction? Is political bias an issue for you if the outlet’s reporting is still fact-based?

For more on Rev. Barber, check out his interview with PBS Newshour in 2020.

Dr. Cornel West greets Bishop William Barber after speaking at the Poor People's Campaign's (PPC) Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. (Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto)

Extension activity: “Blazing Arrow” by Blackalicious

Now watch this segment of the Democracy Now! video. The song featured is “Blazing Arrow” by the rap group Blackalicious. The rapper behind the song explained that the album the song is on, also called Blazing Arrow , “is about conviction and faith and being able to walk a path and make that purpose manifest itself, having the strength to endure that path. Blazing Arrow is action; it’s an arrow in flight.” Here are the lyrics if your class is interested (the second verse is the one featured in the video). Have your students answer the following questions:

1. Why do you think Democracy Now! Chose to pair pictures of the march with this song?
2. Which images in particular stick out to you?
3. What do some of the signs that the protestors are holding say?
4. What are the protestors doing in some of the images?
5. Looking at the lyrics, what is one line from the song that stands out to you?

Lesson by Leo Kamin, rising sophomore and history major at Amherst College and PBS NewsHour Classroom intern, with editing by Victoria Pasquantonio.

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